Abstract
<jats:p>The article examines the reforms that introduced rent during the period of perestroika in the USSR and the attitude of Soviet society towards them. The possibility of renting has become an important stage in the transition to a market economy. In the conditions of that time, the tenant could buy the leased property from the state, and this was the first step for privatization in the country. This reform, like most other reforms of that time, sparked a broad public debate, involving the media, members of parliament, scientists, and the entire society. The article consider show such periodicals of the perestroika as Argumenty I Fakty , Izvestia , Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU , and Pravda covered the topic of rent. The author also draws attention to the attitude of people’s deputies to this issue and presents the most different opinions of researchers who lived at that time - young scientists who defended their PhD thesis on the topic of rent. As a result, despite extremely positive coverage of the rent in newspapers and almost complete disregard of its negative aspects there were polar opinions among people’s deputies of the USSR: from complete approval to rejection along with all other reforms. The assessments of scientists who paid great attention to the introduction of rent in various economic sectors were more restrained. They noted its shortcomings, especially in the works written after the collapse of the USSR.</jats:p>